


han river gulls

by whiskerprince



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Future AU, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other relationships - Freeform, Slow Burn, and stresses over his illegal business, asshole friend who adopted changbin minho, based on the professions skz said they would have if not skz, high school to post-uni friends seungbin, if u know me u know there's gonna be angst, much ado about tattoos, non-skz au, seungmin is a prosecutor who has an unlikely friendship with tattoo artist changbin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 22:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskerprince/pseuds/whiskerprince
Summary: These are just the growing pains of getting older and falling in love.(or, in which Changbin is in love with his best friend, in love with someone else.)





	han river gulls

**Author's Note:**

> welcome.  
> this is my segment called, "i don't know how to write longfic for popular ships and get stuck in rare pair hell fucking kill me"  
> i hope you enjoy your stay.

You cannot get in the way of anyone’s path to happiness, it also does no good. The problem is

figuring out which part is the path and which part is the happiness.

Richard Siken, “War of the Foxes (i)”

 

Changbin looks up at the chirp of the keypad outside their suite, but Sangwoo hadn’t seen anything worth warning him about on the cameras, so Changbin ignores the cloudy shape in front of their frosted glass doors. The visitor gets the code right on the second try and Changbin hears the muffled sound of Sangwoo greeting their guest, followed by a “Is Changbin-ssi in today?” and what he assumes is a wordless gesture towards the back, and then Seungmin is rolling back the sliding door to Changbin’s studio and stepping inside.

Hoppang, who has a good nose for idiots who don’t know their way around the studio, takes the opportunity to dart in around Seungmin’s legs and Seungmin curses.

“Oi!” he barks. “Shoo, you! You know you can’t come in here!”

Hoppang ignores him and hops up onto one of the padded benches and starts to purr, ugly and rough and loud as hell. Changbin laughs through his nose and glances back to see Seungmin attempting to find a way to pick her up without getting clawed to death, not that Hoppang cared how she was handled. Changbin finishes rinsing the gun and pats it down with a towel before laying it to dry in the autoclave with the rest of the tools he had been cleaning.

“I’ll take her,” Changbin says, patting his hands dry and stepping back towards the benches. Hoppang’s eyes go all squinty when Changbin approaches her and her purr picks up. “Hi princess,” Changbin coos, scratching her forehead and thumbing down the bridge of her nose, making her shake her head. He lifts her into his arms and walks back out to reception, putting her back on the blankets on top of the heating table with Gwi. She flicks her bat ears at him once, then settles right back down against her sister until they resembled the same beige blankets they were curled up in, sides rising and falling softly, like a single hairless cat sculpture.

Changbin walks back into his studio and Seungmin has already taken off his blazer and is loosening his tie. “Are you busy?” he asks, belatedly.

“Nah,” Changbin says. “Last appointment ended about fifteen minutes ago. I was just cleaning up.”

Seungmin rips off the tie and tosses it onto the bench with his blazer, then undoes his top two buttons. “I swear to God…” he mutters.

“Who was on today?” Changbin asks, already knowing the answer.

“ _Choi_ ,” Seungmin spits, and Changbin hums sympathetically. “I swear to God, when I leave work, I can play nice with the defense attorneys. I really can. We’ve gone for drinks together. But Choi is the slimiest, rotten, foul piece of—” Seungmin takes a breath. “I just get so pissed off when he thinks he’s bagged the jury and he gets this smug little smirk on his face and I always lose my cool.”

“Did you win?” Changbin asks.

Seungmin makes a face. “Plea bargain. Five years, but I wish I could’ve put the guy away for twenty-five. Sometimes I wonder why I even got into law.”

Changbin grins. “Not the hero Seoul deserves, but the hero it needs.”

Seungmin purses his lips to keep from smiling and punches Changbin in the shoulder. “Shut _up_. You’re the worst best friend ever.”

“You’ll get ‘em next time,” Changbin says. “You’re still just a junior at your firm. You have many years to improve.”

“I know,” Seungmin says. “It just sucks.”

Changbin nods at that and continues tidying up his studio. He checks the levels of the pigments and his stock of needles, but seeing how few appointments he has during exam season, he should be able to last until the new shipment arrives with no trouble. He brushes a hand over the film on the bench Hoppang had climbed onto, but there are no puncture marks and she’s hairless anyway, so he won’t bother changing it out. He locks one of his sketchbooks away in its drawer and pulls out the smaller moleskin and counts in his head to see if he has enough won to buy ramyeon and ice cream at the Han River tonight.

Seungmin looks like he’s close to falling asleep, leaning his head against the wall on one of the spinning stools with foam spilling out of tear in the side. His eyes are closed and his grip loose around his phone, the ringer off but the screen lighting up with notifications. Like this, Changbin can count his eyelashes and see how dark the bags under his eyes are, even with concealer on. He pulls Seungmin’s phone from his hand and sets it on the counter. Seungmin gives it up with a tiny noise in the back of his throat.

Changbin brushes a hand through Seungmin’s gelled hair and kisses his forehead. Seungmin’s eyes flutter open and he offers Changbin a half-smile. “I’m okay,” he says softly, an answer to a question Changbin hadn’t even asked.

“You sure, princess?” Changbin asks.

“’M not a princess,” Seungmin grumbles, smiling through his pout. “The only princesses in your life are Gwi and Hoppangie.”

“Oh, but of course,” Changbin says. His smile softens. “Can I make you some tea, at least?”

“Yeah,” Seungmin relents. “No black though, I already had a coffee on the way here and I want to sleep tonight.”

“Jasmine okay?”

“Mmhmm.”

Changbin pulls out his crappy electric kettle and two mismatched mugs, taking the chipped one for himself. He spoons a couple of tea leaves into his teapot’s strainer and fills up the kettle, plugging it in and flipping the switch. He leans back against the counter while Seungmin recovers his phone, brows furrowed as he replies to the texts. He doesn’t look up from his phone even when Changbin flicks the switch on the kettle and pours the hot water. He waits for the tea to steep, then pours it into their mugs and adds a packet of honey he snitched from Dunkin Donuts for his ‘for Seungmin only’ collection of honey packets to Seungmin’s mug. He stirs the tea with a finger, grimacing at the burn, and sucks on it.

Seungmin only looks up once Changbin offers the mug to him, a tea cozy wrapped around the base. Changbin is used to scalding his throat and hands during late night sketch sessions, but Seungmin’s fingers are soft and dainty and he kicks up a fuss over papercuts.

“Thank you,” Seungmin says, blowing on the tea and taking a sip. Changbin pretends not to watch, sipping at his own mug.

Seungmin takes another sip and pauses. “You put honey in here. That’s why it tastes so good.”

Changbin slurps at his tea and doesn’t reply.

“Hyung…” Seungmin says. “You know I’m trying to diet.”

“It’s organic,” Changbin says, hoping that it’s true. He has no idea.

Seungmin is pursing his lips again, trying not to smile. “You’re just trying to fatten me up so you can have me all to yourself.”

“Me? Never,” Changbin says. “I couldn’t do that to Hyorin; she’d have my head.”

“Hey!” Seungmin protests, laughing. “She’s known me since university. There’s no way she hasn’t seen me in pajamas with a bloated face on exam day, and she’s dating me anyway.”

Changbin doesn’t have the heart to say that he hadn’t meant tempting Seungmin off his diet.

“She better appreciate your baby face,” Changbin says, pinching Seungmin’s cheek. “It’s the cutest baby face around.”

Seungmin crinkles his nose and flails at Changbin. “Not _all_ of us can have a perfect jawline, hyung.” He sniffs and sticks his chin out. “I still have growing to do, though. I haven’t peaked yet.”

“God save us all when you do,” Changbin says.

Seungmin smacks his arm. “You’re so _mean_ ,” he squeaks.

“Drink the rest of your tea or I’ll force feed you snacks,” Changbin says, rolling his eyes.

Seungmin drinks his tea obediently and Changbin admires the neat half-moons of his nails. His own were chipped and bitten, the cuticles uneven from his habit of mutilating them while working on sketches. It’s a metaphor for their lives, he thinks, and wonders idly if he can somehow work that into one of his clients’ concepts.

Seungmin sets his mug down and his phone lights up again. The smile that had been playing at the edge of his lips drops away and he picks his phone up, reading the message and then tapping away again. Changbin picks up his mug and washes it out, filling his own mug up with another cup. He settles on the bench in front of Seungmin’s stool and raises his eyebrows. “Work?”

“The guys want me to go drinking with them again,” Seungmin says. “I told them I wasn’t feeling it after having to spend all afternoon with Choi, but it’s Yeonho-hyung’s birthday and they’re mad at me for ducking out. Even though I don’t even know Yeonho-hyung all that well and I don’t have a gift or anything.”

“Can’t you say you have a date with Hyorin?”

“She’s in London for the shooting of the new _Sherlock_ episode.”

“…Can’t you say you have a date with Hyorin?”

“I already told everyone about the part,” Seungmin says. “And have you ever tried lying to a bunch of lawyers? It never goes well.”

Changbin frowns. “It’s nearly midnight.”

Seungmin sighs. “And they’ll go hard until four in the morning and the bartender throws them out.”

“Seungminie…” Changbin says.

“I’ll just go for a couple hours,” Seungmin says, already reaching for his blazer and tie. “They’ll get drunk quick and then I can slip away around two. It’ll be fine. I should probably network with my sunbaes anyway.”

He slips on his blazer and attempts to do up his tie in the mirror in front of Changbin’s sink, fingers fumbling over the knot.

“Here,” Changbin says. “Let me.”

Seungmin offers the tie to him with a sheepish smile and Changbin does it up quickly, loosening the knot more than Seungmin would and brushing down his shoulders. “You still need Hyorin to do your tie, huh?” he teases.

Seungmin laughs. “She’s always so annoyed when I wake her up on her days off just to get my tie done. It’s been rough asking the PA for help every day. I’m lucky she thinks I’m cute or something.”

“Does she know you have a girlfriend?”

“Yes,” Seungmin says wryly. “She’s seen way too many episodes of _How to Get Away with Murder_.”

At that, Changbin laughs. “Too bad you’re as straight-laced as they come.”

“You say that,” Seungmin says, “as if you’ve forgotten my best friend runs an illegal business.”

“A _lucrative_ illegal business,” Changbin corrects. “Just you wait, one day I’ll get hired in LA and live next door to Hugh Jackman and then you’ll be the fool for going to law school and getting a _real_ job.”

“Hugh Jackman is Australian,” Seungmin says, eyes twinkling.

“And you think he doesn’t have a house in LA?” Changbin scoffs. “Everyone has a house in LA.”

“I guess Hyorin and I’ll have to buy up the house next to you then,” Seungmin says. “And we can argue over my hibiscus creeping onto _your_ side of the lawn and you throwing wild pool parties during the week.”

“We would be the worst neighbors,” Changbin says, grinning.

“We really would,” Seungmin says, grinning back.

Seungmin’s phone rings before Changbin can think too hard about how warm Seungmin’s arms are under his blazer. The grin falls from Seungmin’s face and he answers the phone with a clipped, “Yeah, I’m coming.” He rolls his eyes and mouths ‘oh my god’ at Changbin. “Can you chill out? I stopped by a friend’s place first. Hyung doesn’t even know my name; he’s not going to care that I showed up late…yeah, I already said I’d be there, can you stop spamming the groupchat now? Okay, whatever. Bye.”

Seungmin shoves his phone into his pocket and drags a hand through his hair. “Wenzhong is such a dick. I hate all of them.”

Changbin nods.

As if remembering himself, Seungmin looks up at Changbin and sighs. “Sorry. I know my work drama must be annoying. Thank you for always listening to me.”

“It’s not a problem,” Changbin says.

“Are you going home soon?” Seungmin asks.

Changbin holds up his moleskin with a smile. Seungmin matches it. “Okay,” he says. “Don’t stay out too late though, okay? The trains are always kind of sketchy at night. Text me if you need me to pay for an Uber.”

“Okay, mom,” Changbin teases.

“Ass,” Seungmin says. He squeezes Changbin’s arm. “Thanks for letting me come by.”

“You’re always welcome,” Changbin says, and walks with him out to reception. Seungmin makes sure to stop and coo over Gwi and Hoppang before leaving, scratching them behind their ears until they purr. He offers Changbin one final glance and a little wave before he walks out. Changbin watches until his shadow fades beyond the frosted glass.

He thinks Sangwoo will give him a _look_ or a raised eyebrow, but he’s watching dramas on his phone and doesn’t notice Changbin hovering over Seungmin’s goodbye. Small miracles.

 

\--- XXX ---

 

Changbin has ten piercings and more tattoos than he remembers ever paying for. Seungmin cried the night they got drunk in high school and Changbin offered to pierce his ears before Changbin could even stick the needle in him. It’s simple math.

Changbin did his first lobe piercings himself and got the rest of his ear piercings done professionally after he tried to do his own cartilage and ended up giving himself a nasty infection that hurt so bad he couldn’t wear headphones for months. He has a nose ring and bar through his tongue, although he doesn’t wear his lip piercing anymore. His full sleeves stretch from his wrists to his neck and he has a smattering of tattoos across his calves and the back of his neck, across his knuckles and at the small of his back, a band around his ankle and the Chinese character for ‘to continue’ behind his ear. He’s never sure what to tell people when they ask what tattoos he has, because sometimes he’ll sit in a new position and discover a design he’s never seen before on his body.

Minho calls him reckless, but Minho also asked for an anchor with an “inspirational” quote on his ankle so Changbin refuses to take anything he says about tattoos seriously.

It’s not that he’s reckless. Changbin is an artist. He understands how grueling it is to draw the same goddamn butterfly every day for girls just out of high school, or to suffer through a stilted conversation in English with a foreigner just to find out they want the lyrics to BTS’s ‘DNA’ but can’t be bothered to look up what ‘None of this is coincidence’ is in Korean. Changbin joined a groupchat for unfortunate tattoo jobs done on foreigners for the exact reason that he understands the spite that prompts his friends in Taiwan to write ‘I love rice’ instead of whatever bullshit some German guy wanted for the exotic aesthetic.

There’s a reason Changbin’s practice is concept-base instead of request-based. It’s the same reason why when he gets the itch for a new tattoo, he closes his eyes and lets his friends do whatever they want.

Seungmin may not understand why Changbin risks raids and fines and jail time for a job that has him scraping his pockets to pay rent for his shitty apartment and the suite he splits with Sangwoo, but then again, Seungmin isn’t an artist. He’s practical and intelligent and heated about sexual offences. Ask him to recite the notable rulings on human trafficking within the last thirty years and he’ll quote them word for word. Take him to an art museum, though, and he’ll park himself in the gift shop, reading one of the novels from the 70’s that no one was actually supposed to be interested in. Changbin has to admit though that it’s some kind of art when Seungmin gets fired up and tipsy and uses words Changbin didn’t even know existed to describe the scum he’s put behind bars.

Seungmin isn’t an artist, but there’s some kind of art to a Seungmin raging about how inflation and high unemployment correlates to teenage prostitution, to a Seungmin falling asleep on the phone with Changbin when Hyorin is away, to a Seungmin that rushes into Changbin’s studio with his bonus check or promotion notice in hand and bright eyes and a _look, hyung, look!_

Or maybe Changbin’s just in love. He can’t tell anymore.

He doesn’t have enough money to buy ice cream, so he buys a pack of gum with his ramyeon and chews on a piece thoughtfully while he dumps the sauce packet into the noodles. There should be enough light from the streetlamps for him to spend an hour or so with grass between his toes. He waddles across the field with ramyeon in tow and parks himself on the grass near a light, rolling onto his stomach and kicking his feet into the air.

The Han River is different after dark. The families are gone and the couples come out, lights flickering to life along the path and the air growing heavier. It’s easier to hear the river at night without the cries of gulls or the frantic day traffic or families or the pounding of bass from a nearby speaker. The dark is good for people like Changbin, who like to hear themselves think.

He draws for a little while waiting for the ramyeon to cool off. He sketches trees and the shapes of couples walking by, the skyline of Seoul and the shadows of blades of grass in front of him. None of this is for actual tattoo designs; rather, Changbin just wants to keep his skills sharp. It’s a bit too late at night to be sketching, but he doesn’t have any appointments tomorrow and Sangwoo’s are spaced far enough apart that he responded to Changbin’s text of can i stay home tmr with an okay emoji.

He sits up to eat his ramyeon, slurping freely without worry of bothering anyone. It’s maybe a little too hot when summer is just around the corner and he’s wearing a hoodie, but his stomach gurgles gratefully. He’s not _starving_ by any means, it’s just that when he thinks about how nice it would be to have a slice of watermelon, it really is just a thought. Changbin’s always been skinny, any weight he tried to put on falling right off of him. His face is sharp and earns him appreciative glances, but he’d much rather have the plushness of Seungmin’s cheeks, or Minho’s ass (not that he’ll ever give that smug rat the satisfaction of knowing he’d checked out his ass).

Changbin doesn’t really think about it before he’s sketching round cheeks, a square jaw, the half-moon curl of parted hair, a symmetrical nose, and by the time he’s filling out Seungmin’s individual eyelashes, Changbin realizes he’s memorized the way Seungmin looks when he’s sleeping. It feels invasive, like Changbin has some ulterior motive, but it’s not like that. He’s not going to use the drawing for anything lewd, or hang it up in a Seungmin shrine, or use it in a pagan ritual. Seungmin is just beautiful, and Changbin is an artist; he can’t help but appreciate beautiful things.

Or maybe you’re just in love, Changbin thinks, and it sounds like Minho’s voice.

He sends Seungmin a text, let me know that u got home safe, ok?

He doesn’t need to stay up until three to wait for Seungmin to get home, but sometimes that’s just how it is, being in love.

 

\--- XXX ---

 

“Can I play my Spotify?”

Changbin goes over the line twice to thicken it before he looks up. Seungmin is spinning idly on that same ripped stool, the stool grinding out a faint squeak every time he finishes a revolution. Changbin’s phone is plugged in right now, cycling through the tracks of Soundcloud rappers he likes.

Changbin glances at his client, a regular who had been completely fine with Seungmin loitering in the corner of Changbin’s studio. “Do you mind if I let my friend pick the music?”

“Not at all,” he says. To Seungmin, he says, “Go wild, kid.”

Seungmin brightens and turns off Changbin’s Bluetooth, pairing his own iPhone with the speaker. Changbin switches his needle and starts working on the stippling as Seungmin puts on some female vocalist singing in English. Beneath her voice, Changbin can hear Seungmin singing under his breath and he smiles.

“J.One isn’t bad,” Changbin says. “He likes lyrical raps; I thought you would like him.”

“His mixtape is okay,” Seungmin agrees, “but I like the pure vocal demos he made more.”

Changbin pauses over his client’s leg for only a moment, but continues without comment. It’s pointless, though. Seungmin is a lawyer, hawk-eyed and owl-eared, and his eyes burn into the crown of Changbin’s head as he hunches over his work. Seungmin’s library is full of upbeat pop music, some girl groups mixed in with the English songs, and Seungmin flips between English and Korean with ease, his voice soft and pretty and very unfortunately the only thing Changbin can focus on, but luckily he finished all the linework last session and is only doing shading today.

He completes the stippling on the nautilus and the waves moving it and wipes down his client’s leg with an antiseptic wipe and wraps it up. The man has already been around the block with Changbin’s work but Changbin gives him the aftercare lecture anyway and tells him to text him if there’s any complications. He receives his final payment and a strong pat on the back, and then they’re alone in the studio for another half hour before Changbin’s next client.

The moment the suite door closes, Seungmin’s eyes jump to Changbin and he smiles smugly, all his teeth showing. “You didn’t think I knew J.One,” he says.

“Of course you know J.One,” Changbin says. “I’m like, his biggest fanboy. There’s no way you haven’t heard me ranting about how I don’t hear fun rappers like him anymore.”

“No,” Seungmin singsongs. “You _were_ surprised. You didn’t think I paid any attention.”

“I must have mentioned his demos before,” Changbin mumbles, even though he knew he hadn’t.

“Nope,” Seungmin says. “I found those all on my own. He has a really sweet voice; I hope he gets signed soon.”

“Me too,” Changbin says. He side eyes Seungmin. “You really listen to me talking about underground rappers?”

“I’m offended by your lack of faith in me,” Seungmin says. He rolls his eyes. “I just _pretend_ not to care about anything you say, hyung. It’s my charm.”

“Some charm,” Changbin mutters, fighting down a smile.

“ _Hyung_ ,” Seungmin whines. “I do listen! I really do!”

“I know,” Changbin says.

Seungmin is so cute like this. Slightly pouting, legs splayed apart and hands pressed against the stool between them, like he’s going to jump off of it and wrestle Changbin into a headlock (it had happened before). He’s wearing a soft blue and white pinstriped button up opened onto a white T-shirt and black, ripped jeans and sneakers with scuff marks on the edges. His bangs are in his face and his hair wavy the way it got when he let it air dry and he’s not wearing any makeup. Seungmin is shining so brightly that Sangwoo had to do a double take because he thought Seungmin was here for a consultation and not to pester Changbin.

Changbin is weak. He scrubs a hand through Seungmin’s hair and Seungmin yelps and bats him away. He turns around on the stool in an attempt to pout, but just leaves himself vulnerable to another assault of hair ruffling. They get into a slapping match with Seungmin screeching at Changbin and Changbin laughing.

Sangwoo pounds on the window of the studio. “Yo, shut up!” he calls from reception.

Changbin and Seungmin look at each other and giggle before getting into a shushing fight and pressing their fingers to their lips, getting in each other’s faces until Seungmin coughs and sputters when Changbin shushes too fiercely and gets spit on him.

“You are so disgusting,” Seungmin says, washing his face. “What kind of health-code violating establishment is this? Spitting on customers.”

“You’re not a customer; you’re a flea,” Changbin accuses. “You come in here and leech off my air-conditioning and tolerance of you.”

“Wow, hyung,” Seungmin says, clutching his chest. “You tolerate me? What’s next, you gonna ask me on a date?”

Changbin’s heart skips, but he ignores it. “If it’s just you and me in the studio and I make you tea, isn’t that basically a date?”

Seungmin opens and closes his mouth and tilts his head curiously. “Well damn. I guess we’ve been dating this whole time. What will I ever tell Hyorin?”

“From beloved lead actress of _Flower-Picking Season_ to the criminal underbelly of Seoul,” Changbin laments. “Oh, how the mighty fall.”

“At least you’re kind of handsome,” Seungmin says. “You know. If you squint.” He laughs when Changbin tries to punch him.

“Why are you even here?” Changbin cries. “You’re literally terrified of needles.”

Seungmin shrugs, rocking back and forth on the stool. “I just like hanging out with you.”

Changbin knows why he’s here. Seungmin is a paradox—he hates being touched, but can’t be left alone. Loves his job, but would sell his law firm and coworkers to Satan for a single corn chip. Can spend hours paging through Changbin’s sketchbooks, but goes pale at the sight of his gun. Seungmin is here because even though he’s fierce in a courthouse, he’s shy and comes off as cold and sucks at meeting new people. Changbin is one of his only friends and when Hyorin is out of town, Seungmin leans on him more than usual.

But it’s Saturday (hence the casual dress), and if Changbin remembers correctly, Hyorin is flying into Incheon this afternoon. “When’s Hyorin get in?” Changbin asks.

“Three,” Seungmin says. “I’m driving to Incheon in a couple hours.”

“She excited to be back home?” Changbin asks, starting to clean up his work station.

“Mmhmm!” Seungmin says. “We’ve been Facetiming every night and while she _really_ loves England and France, she says she misses Korean food. Her English has gotten so good though, she might be even better than me.” He kicks his feet. “I’m so excited to see her.”

“I bet you are,” Changbin says. “It’s been…two months?”

“Yeah,” Seungmin says. “Which is great! Because they let her have more lines and a bigger part. But I really miss her. It sucks sleeping alone after you’re used to sharing a bed with someone.”

“I’m sure. You taking her to dinner?”

“Yeah,” Seungmin says. “Nothing too fancy—the barbecue place we went for our first date. Their bulgolgi is to die for and the banchan are really fresh since it’s right next to a community garden. I don’t know…should I have gone fancier? Maybe she wants a really nice dinner after all.”

Changbin snorts. “Hyorin is a no-fuss kind of girl. I’m sure she wants to go somewhere in sweatpants and not be judged. She’s had to perform for these producers for two whole months. I think by now she’s ready to burp in front of someone and shovel beansprouts into her mouth like a maniac.”

Seungmin’s eyes crinkle at the edges. “You remember her favorite food.”

“Uh, yeah,” Changbin says. “I remember humiliating myself by buying her a massive bag of beansprouts because you didn’t tell me when her birthday was until the day of.”

“She thought it was so funny!” Seungmin says. “Seriously, we talk about it all the time. She asks about you a lot, since I’m always over here. ‘How’s beansprout boy doing?’”

“You’re only telling me this because you want to call me ‘beansprout boy’ to my face.”

“Guilty.”

Changbin shakes his head. “You’re a terror. I wish Hyorin nothing but luck.”

“I would be lost without her,” Seungmin says. “I would be lost without both of you.”

“Buy her some flowers and stop venting to me, you sap,” Changbin says.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Seungmin says. “What kind should I get her?”

“Baby’s breath,” Changbin says. “And something yellow.” He pauses. “And get a single rose and hold it in your mouth when you see her. She’ll think it’s hilarious.”

“Wow, sometimes it feels like you’re dating her through me,” Seungmin jokes.

“I’m just trying to protect her from you,” Changbin says, rolling his eyes and putting away the last of his instruments. He passes by Seungmin and freezes when Seungmin grabs him gently by the wrist.

“Thank you, hyung,” he says softly.

Changbin swallows. “For what?”

Seungmin smiles and looks away, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know. All of this?”

Changbin frees his hand and settles it on top of Seungmin’s head, petting the strands of his hair back into place. “You don’t have to thank me for caring about you and being interested in your life.”

“I know,” Seungmin says. “Sometimes I just want to.”

“If you’re really that thankful, you can buy me a snack from the convenience store before my next client comes in,” Changbin says.

Seungmin laughs. He glances up at Changbin, eyes still sparkling. “Okay. Just this once.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“What? Don’t trust my choices?”

“Can a guy get some fresh air without being accused of something?”

“I am _literally_ a prosecutor. Accusing is my _job_.”

“Whatever, nerd.”

 

\--- XXX ---

 

Seungmin texts Changbin at 9 P.M. on a Thursday with only the word Drinks?

After dark on a weeknight is unusual enough for Changbin to take the bait.

Don’t u have work tmr?

Federal holiday~

And that’s about all it takes to get Changbin off his couch and throwing on clothes while Seungmin texts him the address of the bar.

 

\--- XXX ---

 

 _Why Hongdae_ , is what Changbin wants to ask Seungmin when he finds the bar and shoves his way past a couple drunk university students, but it becomes obvious when he sees Seungmin, clearly dressed for a fun night out and not for Law Firm From Hell (Drunk Version). His bastards of coworkers would never dare step foot outside of Gangnam, so Seungmin is free to get shit-faced instead of trying to flush the soju out of his system as fast as he’s putting it in his body to avoid being drunk around them. He’s already three degrees too happy when he waves to get Changbin’s attention.

“Binnie-hyung!” he calls when Changbin is within yelling distance, and Changbin wrestles him into a headlock for grabbing the attention of parties around them.

“Ow, ow, ow,” Seungmin whines. “Okay, hyung, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Where’s Hyorin?” Changbin asks. “You’re not making her get drinks, are you?”

“Um, okay, _wow_ ,” Seungmin says. “First of all, how old-fashioned of you. Second of all, Hyorin can get free drinks and I _can’t_ , so she always buys. And third of all, she’s not even here, hyung!”

Changbin crinkles his nose and looks around. Okay, fair. This wasn’t Hyorin’s scene either. It would probably be in bad taste for a fairly well-known drama star to be caught drunk, and especially in Hongdae, where any drunk antics would be captured and spread across social media within minutes of it happening. Boys’ night out it is.

“Do you want me to buy you a drink?” Changbin asks.

“What a gentleman,” Seungmin says, stretching his long-ass arms across the table and pressing his cheek against them.

“I only buy beer though,” Changbin says.

Seungmin’s demeanor changes immediately. He crinkles his nose and pokes his tongue out. “Ew.”

“Suit yourself,” Changbin says, and leaves Seungmin whining after him as he goes up to the bar. He has to wait behind a line of girls and their taller-than-Changbin dates, but eventually he manages to elbow his way to the bar and order the IPA he likes. He jerks a thumb at Seungmin over his shoulder. “You know how much he’s had?”

The bartender, a tiny girl in a crop top with bleached, shoulder-length hair snaps her gum and glances at Seungmin. “Two vodka and ciders. He’s light as fuck.”

“You don’t say,” Changbin says drily.

She grins at his deadpan expression. “He yours?”

It takes Changbin a moment to understand the implication she’s making, and by then his hesitation has given an answer to a question she didn’t ask and she raises her hands and says, “Look, dude, we got all kinds around here and if you have a prob—”

“He’s not,” Changbin says softly, and tries to smile.

She lowers her hands. Glances around, finds the manager embroiled in an argument with some guy fronting his authority, and pours a drink faster than a human should be able to. She hands it to Changbin and he opens his mouth, but she shakes her head.

“Me too,” she says. She nods at the drink. “Vodka and cranberry. He’ll love it.”

“Thank you,” Changbin says, and takes the drinks back to table.

Seungmin is still pouting when Changbin returns. “You shouldn’t flirt with that bartender,” he says. “She’s mean.”

“She’s only mean because you’re a useless lightweight,” Changbin says. “Here.”

Seungmin’s eyes widen when he sees the bright red drink Changbin offers him. “What’s this?” he asks.

“Not beer,” Changbin says.

That’s good enough for Seungmin, because he takes to the mixed drink with a pleased noise when he finds it sugary and not the sour or bitter of beer. Changbin sips his IPA and watches Seungmin from across the table.

“We haven’t gone drinking in a while,” Changbin says. He hasn’t eaten in four hours and he knows the beer is going to hit him faster than he’d like it to. He’s already feeling warm in his stomach.

“Mm, yeah,” Seungmin says. “I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy.”

“No, it’s good,” Changbin says. “It’s good you’re keeping busy. Means things are happening in your life and you don’t have to sulk at the bar, bored out of your mind.” He counts on his fingers. “Getting together with Hyorin, graduating, getting a job, moving in together, getting promoted…”

“Stop, stop,” Seungmin laughs. “It’s not that impressive.”

“Remember me when you and Hyorin are a celebrity power couple,” Changbin says, smiling.

“I’ll always remember you hyung, don’t be ridiculous,” Seungmin says. “You’ll be my best man and then you’ll come with me on our honeymoon so I don’t feel so scared of fucking everything up.”

Changbin’s heart stops. “Hang on—is this—wait. Seungmin, are you—is that why you called me out here?”

“What?” Seungmin squints at him. And then, realizing, his eyes widen. “Oh. _Oh_. No, no, no. No, I didn’t pop the question, Jesus, now you’re scaring me.”

“Are you _planning_ to?” Changbin asks, eyes wide as well.

“No!” Seungmin says. “Well, I mean, not yet? I don’t know. I just wanted to spend time with you, that’s all.”

“Minnie…” Changbin says. “Something’s bothering you, isn’t it?”

“No,” Seungmin says. He scratches his nose. “Well—no.”

“Minnie,” Changbin says.

“It’s not anything,” Seungmin says. “I’m being a baby.”

Changbin nudges his foot under the table. “You can talk to me about it.”

“It’s just.” Seungmin sighs. “It’s not fair of me. I’m just being jealous. Ever since the _Sherlock_ shoot, Hyorin’s been hanging out with a lot of her other actor friends. It’s not like she didn’t miss me; we were inseparable the first few weeks back. And I know I’m just jealous, because I hate my coworkers, but I still get sad when she makes plans with them and I have work or the stupid drinks after work.”

“Oh, Minnie,” Changbin says. “It’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with being a little jealous. You’re only human. Is it because she’s not spending time with you, or because you don’t have the support network she does?”

Seungmin rubs his finger through the ring of condensation on the table. “Both, I guess. When we were in university it was just the two of us, you know? Like, we hung out with other friends but we were always each other’s number one. Not that we aren’t anymore, but we had the same friends and we were in sync in deciding when to go out and when not to go. Now that we’re both working, our schedules are disjointed and…I miss her.”

“Has she invited you out with her friends?”

Seungmin nods. “She has, but…but hyung they’re so _cool_ and so _classy_ and they’ve traveled around the world and I’m just some dumb kid who got to visit LA one time and took a family vacation to Japan for a couple weeks. I don’t have anything interesting to add to their conversation. So I always turn down her invitation even though I really wanna go.”

Changbin flicks Seungmin on the forehead and Seungmin flinches. “Ow! What was that for?”

Changbin shakes his head and smiles. “Accept her invitation, you big doofus.”

“But they’re—”

“They’re her friends,” Changbin says. “I’m sure they’re crazy curious about you. And they’ll love you! Minnie, I know you freeze up around new people, but you’ll be with _Hyorin_. She knows you well enough to make up for any awkward silences and help immerse you in the conversation. She won’t leave you out to dry if you get stuck.”

Seungmin smiles back, looking up through his eyelashes. “You haven’t called me ‘Minnie’ for a long time, hyung.”

“You haven’t tugged on my heartstrings like this in a long time,” Changbin blurts out.

Seungmin feigns surprise. “A heart? Do you even know what that is?”

“Ya,” Changbin scolds. “Don’t get lippy with me, you.”

Seungmin cups his face in his hands. “I’m cute enough to get away with it, though.”

Changbin shakes his head and looks away. “Buy me another drink and we’ll see.”

“Okay!” Seungmin laughs and gets to his feet, trotting over to the bar.

Changbin drains his beer. He’s not tipsy, barely even buzzed, but he’s scared of how Seungmin is making him feel and he wants to stop feeling so afraid of fucking up and saying something he means but shouldn’t say. He wants to drink with his best friend like they used to. He wants his chest to stop seizing up whenever Seungmin’s eyes go wide as he’s playing cute.

Seungmin walks back to their table with careful steps, lips parted and eyes fixed on the frothy top of Changbin’s beer, sucking in a breath every time it wobbles too much. Changbin stands up to take it from him and Seungmin’s shoulders relax. It’s not the same IPA he got before, but it’s a stout from a local brewery he had mentioned liking once in passing to Seungmin. He glances at Seungmin, but he’s not paying Changbin any attention, wiggling along to the dubstep with the straw to his drink between his lips.

Standing up and walking around seems to have calmed Seungmin a bit. He dances in place, but keeps quiet and sucks down the mixed drink with his eyes fixed somewhere off in the distance. The magenta lights of the bar set his scarlet-dyed hair afire, catching on the dips of his cheeks and darkening the shadow of his jaw. Seungmin is bright-eyed like Changbin has never seen in another person before, making him look younger than his twenty-seven years.

“I’m glad that I’m able to live in the same time as you,” Changbin says.

Seungmin turns to him and the smile that graces his face is older than Changbin himself and reminds him that Seungmin may look it when he’s drunk and jittery, but he’s not a child anymore.

“How so?” he asks, tilting his head just so and propping his chin up in his palm.

“Just…” Changbin gestures vaguely at the air, flustered now that Seungmin is looking at him. “What are the chances, you know? Being born in the same generation, in the same country, even in the same city—I could have never met you even if we walked past each other every day. But we did.”

“You mean, I knocked the books out of your hands and haven’t lived it down for eleven years.”

Changbin laughs out loud. “It sounds so malicious when you say it like that.”

The real story is that Seungmin had gone on a tour around Changbin’s high school as a junior high student and, being the wide-eyed and gangly fawn with half a head on Changbin that he was, when he was paying attention to the media center that their guide was pointing out and not where he was walking, Seungmin had run straight into Changbin and nearly knocked him over. Changbin survived the impact but the papers from his homeroom class had not, scattered about the hallway, onlookers snickering and Seungmin redder than the color of his hair.

Changbin disliked the tour groups on principle. Obnoxious groups of snot-nosed brats ogling the students and disrupting the flow of traffic in the hallways? Not in his school. Changbin remembers that day clearly, because he turned the fiercest, nastiest sneer of his life on Seungmin and set him cowering as he tried to help pick up Changbin’s papers.

“I’ll get it,” Changbin snapped, and that was the end to the first conversation they ever had.

Nevertheless, Seungmin came to his school. Not only did he come to Changbin’s high school, he also sought him out after the first day assembly, a hand tugging at his sleeve, and then Changbin was left wondering why this handsome first year was giving him a full ninety-degree bow.

“I want to apologize for last time, Changbin-ssi,” Seungmin said. “I hope we can work well together from now on.”

“Uh,” Changbin said. “I’m sure we can. But…have I met you before?”

Cue Seungmin lifting his head, eyes wide. “You—you are Seo Changbin, right?”

“Yeah,” Changbin said. “But I don’t think we’ve met before.”

And then Seungmin’s cheeks flushed like they had that day and Changbin sucked in a breath just as Seungmin started fumbling out an apology about wasting his time.

“Oh,” Changbin said. “That day…the tour group, right?”

“I—yes,” Seungmin said, and then promptly covered his face with his hands. “I don’t know if I’m more embarrassed that you remember me or that you might not have remembered me.”

 _Cute_ , Changbin thought, and right then he should’ve known it was the beginning of the end.

Out loud, he said: “Don’t worry about it. I really forgot about it as soon as it happened.”

“You looked so mad though,” Seungmin said, scuffing his foot on the concrete path. “I’ve wanted to apologize to you since I decided to come here.”

 _Double cute_ , Changbin thought. He smiled. “It’s alright. I’m your hyung now, okay? It’s your _job_ to make trouble for me from now on.”

Seungmin laughed. “Okay, hyung. In that case, can I pester you as to how to get to my classroom?”

The rest was history.

“You were so cute back then,” Changbin says.

Seungmin huffs. “I’m cute _now_.”

“Sure, sure,” Changbin says. “You’re the cutest, princess.”

“You’re the only one I’ll let get away with calling me that,” Seungmin says, making a face.

“What? Princess?” Changbin says. “You like it, don’t you?”

He can’t tell for sure, but he thinks Seungmin is a little flushed. “Only when you say it,” he mumbles. “Doesn’t sound mean when you say it.”

“Of course not,” Changbin says. “You’ve put me through a time of it since we were kids, but you’re always going to be my princess.”

It must be hard to reconcile sometimes, the person someone was in high school and the person they become as an adult in the work force. Changbin is sure Seungmin has former classmates that look at him longer now than they ever did when he was young. Changbin knows because he has former classmates run into him in the convenience store, but they don’t talk to him—they see his tattoos and the silver lining his ears and they keep to themselves. Changbin has seen how their classmates talk to Seungmin now, now that he’s tall and can fill out a suit and has things to say that are worth listening to. Changbin has seen Seungmin put the stars in their eyes and it’s stupid, it’s stupid to be competitive over who’s been starry-eyed the longest, but Changbin always feels satisfied, like he’s had a full meal, when he sees them and thinks, _I looked at him like that first_.

It must be hard for some people to reconcile the high school Seungmin that was too long for his body and cried at every lost baseball game and every poor mark on an exam; the undergrad Seungmin who read until his eyes ran bloodshot and snapped and bristled and got kicked out of class for yelling at a classmate during a debate; the law student Seungmin who forgot to breathe sometimes when he talked about Hyorin and would skip out on studying some nights to go see midnight movies with her. Anyone who knew him during those times might not recognize the poised and gentle-eyed man that Seungmin has become.

But Changbin felt those growing pains alongside Seungmin and has always been at the other end of his phone. Before he knew it, his heart had learned to stretch alongside his friend until it less resembled a heart and more the shape of Seungmin himself.

“I’m glad I live in the same time as you, too, hyung,” Seungmin says, and his heart may not be Changbin-shaped, but he’s set aside a corner of it just for Changbin, and that will be enough.

There’s a beat of comfortable silence. Changbin turns his pint around in his hand and Seungmin draws a smiley face in the condensation on the side of the glass. The bar has switched from dubstep to shitty EDM and outside the doors to the bar, there’s a group of three buskers moving like they can’t feel the humidity sticking to their skin, the speaker at their feet pulsing with a hip hop track. Changbin taps his fingers along to the beat. The leader with bleached hair’s shirt comes up and Changbin sees one of Soonyoung’s old school tats on his hip—bold, angry lines. Changbin thinks about getting a Keith Haring painting in the same place. 

“So,” Seungmin says, a smile in his voice. “You were thinking about me and Hyorin?”

Changbin smiles but doesn’t look back, pretending to be enthralled with the buskers. “I was thinking that you keep talking about a honeymoon in Venice and houses in LA but not about putting a ring on the poor girl first.”

“I think about it!” Seungmin protests. “Hyorin likes peridot, so maybe a wedding ring with—”

“Engagement ring,” Changbin corrects.

“What? No, a wedding ring.”

“No, you mean peridot for the engagement ring.”

“No, I don’t. We’d be getting married; it’s a wedding ring.”

Changbin turns around. “Hang on,” he says. “You _do_ know the difference between an engagement ring and a wedding ring, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Seungmin says, eyes darting.

“Seungmin,” Changbin says slowly, “how many rings do you plan to buy when you marry Hyorin?”

“Um,” Seungmin says. “Two? A peridot one for Hyorin and a plain gold for—”

“No,” Changbin says. “No, no, no.”

Changbin and Seungmin both have older sisters, but only Changbin’s is married. Seungmin’s older sister is headstrong, a man-eater, and despises anything resembling putting down roots. Last Changbin heard, she was backpacking the Appalachian Trail in the United States and had shaved her head. On the other hand, Changbin’s older sister is a computer programmer who works from home and who, with the combined salary of her then fiancé, had enough money to buy out an entire hotel in Gangnam for her wedding if she so desired. And desire she did.

Changbin is intimately, painfully acquainted with the cuts of stones, the thickness of bands, the merits of different stones and metals, what lasts forever, what clashes the least with business casual, which photographs well, which is worth passing on as a family heirloom, is engraving worth it, ad infinitum. He had been there at every dress fitting, every ring fitting, every shoe fitting, even the garter belt fitting and Changbin can say that, barring tattooing, the one topic he knows the most about is weddings and all the _bullshit_ that goes into them. He’d refuse to be Seungmin’s best man if he didn’t know Seungmin would cry through the reception and honeymoon if Changbin didn’t show.

“You are going to buy Hyorin a beautiful peridot engagement ring, and she is going to cry her eyes out when you propose to her at the top of Namsan after a couple’s hike and picnic, and then you are _both_ going to pick out _simple_ wedding bands because even if you’re new money and a soon-to-be celebrity couple, you will not be a bunch of flashy attention whores like the people who break dress code at the Met Gala.”

Seungmin blinks. “Have you planned out my proposal?”

“Do you know the difference between a princess cut and a radiant cut?”

“Isn’t princess cut a teardrop?”

Changbin stares forlornly at the buskers, high-fiving and slapping each other’s asses and thanks his past self for making him into an impoverished street rat. Not that being too broke to afford anything but a band made from melted down gold jewelry he stole from his mother would save him from planning an engagement, apparently, but at least if he ever got engaged, it would be a cheap and ugly thing. And probably a lot more fun than the groundwork he was about to lay out for Seungmin.

His brain supplies the image of a bright blue blanket stretched across scraggly brown grass and his hands opening the packaging to a watermelon ice cream bar. He passes it over to Seungmin and their knuckles brush, bumping over matching brushed steel bands on their ring fingers, and Changbin’s heart throbs.

 _Great_ , he thinks, and hopes he’s too hungover to remember the details in the morning.

 

\--- XXX ---

 

“Let me guess,” Minho says, before Changbin can even open his mouth. “He called you out to the bar to get drunk and confess that he wants to propose to her and you, like an idiot, enabled him to the point of planning out what cut of diamond to get on her engagement ring and how exactly he’s going to propose.”

Changbin opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “How,” he says, “could you _possibly_ have guessed any of that?”

Minho holds up his phone. “Sangwoo told me you came into work hungover the other day. Wanted to know if it was me or—” he makes air quotes with his fingers, “—‘that businessman who is definitely having an affair with you.’ Can I ask why Sangwoo doesn’t know Seungmin’s name yet? … _Are_ you having an affair with him? And you didn’t tell me?”

“God, you are so—” Changbin makes an unintelligible noise and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You are so _frustrating_ , I don’t know why I bother asking you for advice.”

“Because I’m the only one who will tell you straight up,” Minho says. “So?”

It’s too hot out for anyone to be wearing long sleeves or makeup that’s just going to melt off their face as soon as they step into the sun, but naturally, that doesn’t deter Minho. He’s wearing a bulky olive letterman jacket and eyeshadow, not a single hair out of place, and twirling a lollipop around in his mouth. He looks like he’s stepped out of a Saint Laurent shoot for a breather, not like he’s been sitting on the curb of the sidewalk by the Han River for the last ten minutes, waiting for his friend to show up. Changbin hates him just a little bit. He sits down next to Minho and pokes his fingers down the massive knee tear in Minho’s jeans. Minho squeaks and smacks him harder than his pretty face would let on.

Changbin shakes his hand out, grimacing. “Okay, first of all, _no_ , I am not having an affair with Seungmin, what the _fuck_. He just hangs out in my studio after work. Second of all, why and how do you have Sangwoo’s phone number? Actually, don’t answer that. Why does Sangwoo think I only have two friends?”

“We’re friends?” Minho asks, feigning surprise.

“Do you want the dirt or not, you useless drama monger?” Changbin sighs, exasperated.

 Minho mimes for him to continue.

“It wasn’t like that,” Changbin says. “Hyorin’s been hanging out with her actor friends more than usual and Seungmin is feeling a little left out. And before you make the snide comment I can see you winding up to make, yes, he does realize how childish that sounds and he feels bad about it.”

Minho pouts. “Boo. You’re no fun.”

“Anyway, I think he just wanted company, like we used to do before,” Changbin says. “It was before you and I met. We used to go out a few times a week and he would complain about university and I would complain about the shop I was apprenticing in. Good-natured bitching.”

“And then?”

“And then he started dating Hyorin and hanging out with her friends,” Changbin says. “And I wasn’t about to force Seungmin to introduce his loser friend from high school who never went on to university. We stopped going out as much and I just picked up more shifts at the convenience store to save for my own practice, so it worked out for both of us.”

“But he misses you,” Minho says, clicking his tongue. “Classic closet gay regret.”

Changbin shoves his shoulder. “You’re so annoying.”

“Do you _know_ how many closeted guys I’ve found on Grindr who say they’ve been into me since high school and never said anything? It’s a _lot_.” Minho snorts. “As if I would’ve slept with their crusty asses then, let alone now.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Changbin says. “It’s not like he called me out to talk about proposing. I was the one who brought it up, actually. Because I thought that’s what he meant. But he sounded like he hadn’t even thought about it. He kept asking me if I thought he should ask her.”

“And you told him to go for it.”

Changbin throws his hands up. “What did you want me to do? Say no? I can’t in good faith tell him not to marry her just because I wish he would love me instead. Hyorin is such a nice girl and he _loves_ her, hyung. Whenever I check his Snapchat they’re always cooking together, or doing their nails, and squealing over a dog on the street. Their relationship is a permanent honeymoon phase.”

Minho is quiet.

“I’m not a homewrecker,” Changbin says. “I just want him to be happy.”

“You should tell him,” Minho says quietly.

Changbin shoots him an exasperated look. “Did you listen to literally anything I said?”

“Yeah,” Minho says. “I did.”

Changbin wants to snap at him to be serious, but Minho isn’t smiling. He’s looking at his hands. Changbin doesn’t say anything and Minho doesn’t either, for a few moments.

“Sometimes,” Minho says, “you love someone because they’re all you’ve known.”

He links his fingers and hangs his hands between his knees. “There’s happiness to be found in familiar love. When you’ve been with someone so long that you don’t need to tell them the brand of your shampoo or that you can’t eat walnuts, it’s easy and comfortable. But there’s a difference between loving someone and being comfortable, and someone’s love being comforting.”

He flicks his bangs out of his eyes. “It’s okay. I’m not saying they’re unhappy. But they’re _always_ happy. They’re always happy and yet Seungmin hasn’t thought of marrying Hyorin. He loves her. But does he love her for the right reasons?”

“What do you mean?” Changbin asks quietly.

“Real, lasting love isn’t the same thing as honeymoon love. It’s as inevitable as the heat death of the universe. Eventually the energy runs out. Eventually your arms get tired of picking her up and swinging her around when you get home from work every day. You forget a birthday. It’s okay, but it isn’t. She gets dropped off by a friend, wasted, and her phone is out of battery. You’ve been pacing the house for hours. You ask her to stop and she says yes. It’s okay, but it isn’t. You find out that you’re not okay with being left alone for months at a time; she finds out that she has her father’s temper when business is slow. You start to run in other circles. And then there will come a night when you roll into bed with her and you don’t recognize who you married.”

Minho takes a breath. “Real love isn’t like that. It’s as mellow and ever-present as the spinning of a fan in the heat of summer. You don’t buy her a new car, but you leave her a free foot massage coupon in her wallet when the lines on her forehead are more creased than usual. You don’t feel the need to shove your tongue down her throat in public; you just hold hands and don’t always speak when you walk down the street. Maybe you don’t text every day but you still make a pot of coffee every morning for two. There are bursts of immense happiness—a new dog, your first apartment, a weekend trip away—but always there is that undercurrent of knowing you belong and someone belongs to you. You’re not always happy, but you don’t need to be, because that love is bedrock.”

“For someone who doesn’t believe in love, you sure have a lot to say about it,” Changbin says quietly.

“I did believe in love once,” Minho says. “It was a long time ago.”

Changbin looks at his hands. “Even so, I can’t tell him. It could ruin everything and I’m prepared to die his best friend rather than risk losing it all.”

“Then you’ll both die idiots,” Minho says.

“You can’t know that they aren’t truly in love,” Changbin says.

“You’re right,” Minho says. “I don’t know either of them personally. Maybe I’m wrong.”

“You don’t _sound_ like you think you’re wrong,” Changbin mutters.

“That’s because I’m never wrong,” Minho says. “But I won’t force you to tell him. You’re right; things can go wrong in that situation. I just think we should stop letting ourselves be okay with situations we aren’t okay with.”

Changbin looks at Minho. “Are you like…okay?”

Minho gives Changbin a flat look. “I’m the baddest bitch in Seoul. I’m never _not_ okay.”

Changbin holds up his hands. “I just wanted to offer a shoulder to cry on if you needed it.”

“Me? Cry?” Minho scoffs. “Unlikely.”

“You called me last week to sob over the black and white cat from Jun’s Kitchen.”

“Cats and sentimental movies are always excluded from the cry count! We agreed on that _years_ ago! God, you are _ruining_ my reputation.”

“Really though,” Changbin says. “Thank you, hyung. I know it’s not a…comfortable subject, but you always talk to me about it anyway.”

“I just like making fun of you and hearing the latest dirt,” Minho says.

“Uh-huh,” Changbin says, smiling.

“You can make it up to me by introducing me to your hot friend,” Minho says. “The interior designer.”

Changbin’s expression darkens. “I will never let you taint Hyunjinie with your devilish ways.”

“Please?” Minho begs. “He won’t follow me back on Twitter.”

“He doesn’t _know_ you!”

Minho throws himself backwards and lies across the sidewalk. “I don’t have any hot friends,” he whines.

“Thanks,” Changbin says drily. “Can’t you just meet some new people on the dance scene?”

“Oh, I intend to,” Minho says darkly. “I haven’t gotten to work with idols in _months_.”

Changbin furrows his eyebrows. “Are you working with a new group?”

Minho tilts his head towards him. “ASTRO are going on a world tour.”

“Oh, no kidding?” Changbin says, then does a double take. “Wait. ASTRO? As in, Fantagio’s ASTRO? Holy shit, hyung, they’re like—”

“Big deals,” Minho says, grinning and sitting up. “I know.”

“How recently did this happen?” Changbin asks, mouth hanging open.

“Got cast a couple weeks ago,” Minho says.

“You never told me,” Changbin whines.

“You never asked.”

Changbin’s mouth snaps shut.

“Sorry,” Minho says. “That was mean. I know you’ve been busy with loverboy. I won’t hold it against you.”

“Is it really a world tour?” Changbin asks. “Wow, ASTRO.”

“Yep,” Minho says. He counts off his fingers. “Tokyo, Shanghai, Dubai, Amsterdam, Paris, London, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. I think I’m missing a few.”

“That’s so many countries,” Changbin says. “You only went to Japan with BTS, right?”

Minho nods. “I wish my English was better since we’ll have free time but…”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Changbin says. “ASTRO have really fun choreography and their idols are good dancers.”

“They sure are,” Minho says. “They’re so hot. I’m going to slip on stage and accidentally suck Moon Bin’s dick.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Changbin says.

“Okay, maybe not on _stage_ …”

“Please, please, please,” Changbin begs. “Please do not harass the idols.”

“It’s not harassment if he asks me to and I agree,” Minho huffs. “Have you seen the way he looks at Eunwoo? Not a straight man.”

“Can’t you pursue someone normal?” Changbin sighs. “We are like _fleas_ to them.”

“Maybe you are,” Minho says. “But then again, you’re whipped for someone who will never love you back. I don’t fool around within the company and my standards are too high for anyone without a dancer’s body, so. Idols it is.”

“I eagerly await the day you fall from grace and fall in love with a commoner,” Changbin says. “That’s how all these stories go.”

Minho glowers and spits, “Never,” too venomously, even for him.

Changbin raises an eyebrow; Minho pretends not to see.

“Alright, let’s hear it,” Changbin says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If you won’t give me his name then at least tell me what he does. I’m fascinated by the thought of you crushing on anyone who isn’t a dancer.”

“If you ever use the word ‘crush’ and my name in the same sentence again, I will trash your entire apartment.”

“Can’t be worse than it is right now.”

“Fine,” Minho spits. He grabs a handful of grass and starts to rip it apart. “It’s not a _crush_. I’ve just been texting him a lot.”

“And?” Changbin raises an eyebrow.

“He’s a producer,” Minho admits. “He did the production on a few of the tracks for this rookie group I was dancing in a music video for. He was hovering outside the building but he lost the keycode or something so I let him in and showed him to the right office. And then he refused to leave me alone.”

“What’s he like?” Changbin asks.

“Ugly and too young for me,” Minho says, which is Minho-speak for _he’s unbearably adorable and I’m frustrated because I’ve been hyung-zoned_.

“Do you only think about people’s appearance?” Changbin says, laughing and rolling his eyes, but Minho hesitates.

“He makes me laugh,” he says quietly. “And he doesn’t mind when I hug him from behind. A lot of the other guys I’ve been with don’t like skinship, even though we’re all gay. They’re afraid of being out in public, or they’re afraid of their masculinity being threatened. It’s so fucking tiring but this guy will grab me by the elbow to show me something as stupid as a Vine compilation. He just…makes me happy. That’s all. It’s not anything.” Minho scrubs a hand through his hair and Changbin smiles.

“I hope it works out for you,” Changbin says.

“Doubtful,” Minho scoffs. “I had to hear the words ‘Hyung, you’re pretty enough to be an idol and you have a great body’ come out of his mouth, which would be fantastic, except it was followed by, ‘If you ever need someone to produce a track for you, I’ll help you out. That’s what friends are for.’”

Changbin winces. “Ouch.”

“At least idols are horny enough from the dating ban to lose it with the heterosexual pretense,” Minho says. “I’ll die alone but at least I’ll have been fucked by millionaires.”

“You’re more than your laundry list, hyung.”

Changbin waits, watches as Minho screws up his face and makes a retching noise. Changbin’s grin splits his face as Minho dramatically fans himself and pretends to throw up a few more times.

“‘You’re more than your laundry list’? Did you really just say that to me?” Minho’s face is pinched into the exact expression of hysteria and pain as when Sangwoo gave him his first cartilage piercing. “Don’t call this number ever again.”

“Aw, but hyung,” Changbin says sweetly. “I just love you _so_ much.”

“No, shut up,” Minho says, shoving Changbin away from him. “I’m a badass and a hoe. Stop getting your icky feelings on me.”

“You’re stuck with me,” Changbin says. “We’re both going to die alone, so why not die alone together?”

“Are you proposing a forty-year-pact with me?”

“After that night at the bar, I’m not proposing anything ever again in my life.”

“A bitch can drink to that.”

They don’t have anything to toast with though, so Changbin takes Minho’s hand instead. Minho’s hands are small and his fingers stubby, but his palms are cool and dry and it feels good to lock their fingers, letting their clasped hands hang between them and watch the river cruise boat putt by. Neither of them are as okay with this as they pretend, but misery loves company, and Changbin loves Minho as much as Minho loves him.

“I won’t let you die alone,” Minho says so quietly, Changbin could’ve imagined it. He waits for the joke about speed dating, or linking Changbin up with one of Minho’s hooker friends but it never comes. Minho holds Changbin’s hand and watches the gulls ride the thermals that rise between the buildings across the river in Jamil-dong.

“Nothing matters,” Changbin says. “We’re all going to die one day, so let’s try to have fun while it lasts.”

“Positive nihilism,” Minho says. “I like it.” He takes a breath. “We’re all gonna die, so have fun while it lasts!” he calls. A few passersby glance over at them and Changbin shushes him by punching him in the arm.

“What?” Minho asks. “I thought nothing mattered.”

To the next set of passersby, he yells again, “We’re all gonna die, so have fun while it lasts!”

Minho kicks Changbin in the shin. “Well?”

Changbin sighs. “We’re all gonna die, so have fun while it lasts.”

“Louder, you weakass.”

Changbin tightens his grip around Minho’s hand and takes a deep breath. “We’re all gonna die so have fun while it lasts!”

It’s ridiculous, hollering on the sidewalk with tourists and grandmothers and college girls milling around them. Changbin can’t imagine what they look like to the people moving around them. A prank, maybe—one short, skinny kid covered in metal and ink and one aggressively gay wannabe model with shiny eyeshadow holding hands and yelling about the world ending until they break down into giggles and fall against each other, sweat beading at their temples.

It’s ridiculous, but it’s easier to be lonely when you’re not alone.

 

\--- XXX ---

 

Despite posting on his Instagram, on his Twitter, above reception and both in Korean and English that he doesn’t take request commissions, Changbin still gets messages about twice a week in his DMs and over his Kakao in every language under the sun that go something like: _Hi, I love your art, I’ll be in Seoul over these days and I was wondering if you could draw a…_

At that point Changbin stops reading. If he were less professional, he would reply something like _Sorry, I only take on literate clients_ or, on his worse days, _FUCKING READ MY BIO DICKHEAD_. But Seungmin put an end to that real fast, writing up a nice, generic refusal in Korean, English, and Japanese and an explanation that Changbin’s business is concept-based instead of request-based. The rest, Changbin has to plug into Google Translate and let the auto-translation monkeys spit out something resembling a polite decline.

It’s really fucking annoying, but the alternative is to accept those jobs and Changbin can’t do that. Every time he considers it, he thinks of what it must have been like to be the sculptor of the installation outside the Incheon airport, when he realized the ten-meter-high, metal-plated “airship flying over the globe” looked like a gigantic dick and balls. Changbin imagines it’s something along the lines of _fucking kill me_ , followed by _3.5 billion won isn’t worth it,_ and he loves art too much to ever do anything that could make him hate it.

Sangwoo is no help when he complains about shitty potential clients. _Fuckin’ sucks, dude,_ Sangwoo would say, taking a hit from his vape and exhaling a mango-pineapple-kiwi-smelling cloud. Sangwoo’s job is easy. He shoots his clients through some fleshy body part with a metal bar and tells them to clean it every day and not take it out for six months, and when they don’t listen to him and complain about an infection or a sealed hole, he leaves them on read. Sometimes Changbin wonders if he took the wrong route in body modification. The only other person Changbin can complain to about his job that isn’t his sister, who is busy with a baby on the way, is Seungmin, and that’s its own brand of terrible.

But Changbin forgets every now and then how much talking to Seungmin about his job sucks, and occasionally makes the mistake of whining about idiots who can’t read when Seungmin is in the same room as him.

“I wish you wouldn’t do this, hyung,” Seungmin says, brows pulled together.

Changbin mentally punches himself in the throat. _Here we go_.

“You’re an amazing artist,” Seungmin says. “You could go to conventions, get your own studio, make a living through legal avenues. This is so dangerous and all you ever do is complain about how much work it is and how expensive it is.”

“I have my own studio,” Changbin says. “You visit it every other day. Actually, you’re sitting in it right now! Incredible how life works out.”

“Hyung.”

“Seungmin-ah.”

Seungmin’s lips press together in a thin line. “I’ll prosecute you,” he mutters.

“Oh yeah?” Changbin says, sharper than intended. “Then where would you go after work?”

Which is stupid, and hurts Changbin more than it probably hurts Seungmin. Where would he go? How about home, to his loving and serious girlfriend, who he is in a loving and serious relationship with? Seungmin doesn’t need to hang out with Changbin. Changbin can’t do anything for Seungmin other than hear out his problems, bribe snacks out of him, and argue over the same fucking thing they’ve been arguing over since Changbin gave that Thai transfer student he dated for a little while a stick-and-poke tattoo in Seungmin’s first year of university. Changbin needs Seungmin more than Seungmin needs Changbin; he’s just too nice to say it.

“I’d visit you in prison,” Seungmin says, “just so I can keep calling you an idiot to your face.”

Seungmin’s a little bit drunk, Changbin thinks, and more than a little grumpy. He hadn’t even thought that Seungmin was going to stop by today—it’s way after hours and Changbin was only staying late because the clutter in his apartment drove him too insane to draw there. But Seungmin had this sixth sense about when Changbin stayed late and when he didn’t, so he let himself in and flopped across the fake leather couch in reception while Changbin drew at the desk.

“I’m not going to prison,” Changbin says. “And I’m not going to stop working. You know this. I don’t why we keep talking about it.”

“I’m just worried about you,” Seungmin says. “All the time.”

Changbin sighs. He knows. And that’s why it’s so terrible to talk to Seungmin about his work. Because Seungmin _cares_ , and that’s why he hates it. It would be easier if Seungmin was an asshole, elitist about how body modification is disrespectful to one’s parents because you were _born_ that way and you should _stay_ that way. Changbin wouldn’t feel bad blocking his number and changing the keycode to the suite if that were the case. Maybe it was the fact that tattooing was his passion, or maybe it was the fact that staying the way you were born only mattered up until the point that his parents caught him kissing an older guy from university and then he’s _unnatural_. Whatever. Can’t write Changbin out of the will if he disowns himself first. Bitch.

But Seungmin doesn’t care about any of that shit. He just cares about Changbin. The first time they had a serious argument about this, afterwards, Changbin had the malicious thought that he really _was_ glad Seungmin didn’t have feelings for him, because he could never date someone who didn’t respect him enough to let him do what he loved. And then immediately felt deeply, achingly awful and almost called Seungmin, only for Seungmin to beat him to it, sobbing over the phone about how much he loves Changbin’s work and thinks he’s amazing, Seungmin’s just so afraid of taking a taxi to his building and seeing the flash of blue and red.

“Minnie,” Changbin says, looking up from his paper.

“I know,” Seungmin says, hugging a pillow to his chest. “I know.”

“I saved for years just to buy my way out of the apprenticeship—”

“And start your own practice,” Seungmin says. “Yeah.” He rubs at his eyes. “Can I watch you draw?”

“Of course,” Changbin says, relieved that part of the conversation is over.

Seungmin pulls up a chair and seats himself at the edge of the desk, laying his head down on the polished wood and watching the scratch of Changbin’s pencil. Under normal circumstances, Changbin would shy away, childishly cover his art with his upper body if anyone took a peek over his shoulder, from his sister (“Drawing tits again, I see.” “I’m _not_!”) to Sangwoo (“I’m letting you tattoo my ass and you won’t even let me see the sketch?”). But when Seungmin watches him draw, it isn’t the lines that Changbin falters over, or the lumpy shapes that will eventually become a painting across skin. He watches Changbin’s pencil move, watches Changbin tap his chin, watches the shreds of eraser curl across the paper. Sometimes he’ll fall asleep to the quiet sounds of sketching, and that’s why he’s the only one allowed in Changbin’s vicinity when he’s working on sketches.

This one is for a small girl who came into Changbin’s studio under a false name, with a long, full-sleeved dress at the height of summer and gauze taped over her eye. She spoke softly and Changbin had to lean in to hear her, but when he finally stopped biting his tongue and asked her if she was okay, she held up her cut-up knuckles with a smile and said _I am now_.

That’s how Changbin does his business—he discusses sizes and colors and general concepts over DMs or Kakao, and then meets his clients in person for their first consultation. It’s an interview, kind of, to help Changbin get a feel for their personality and their energy. Changbin isn’t synaesthetic, but he believes everyone has their own unique colors and symbols that represent them. It’s too hard to picture their mannerisms, their confidence, their speech style, their appearance over text, so he meets them to figure out what kind of story he wants to tell across their skin. They come in for one final consultation, to clear the design, and then they begin the actual sessions.

This one is a crow tit flitting up her thigh, over branches of jasmine starting to bloom. It blooms, it catches fire, and then the crow tit becomes a silvery blue phoenix with primary feathers sharp like knives and glinting. There’s no blood, because she shouldn’t remember the pain, but its talons are grasping a tattered red flag, and the phoenix smiles the same way she had that day, holding up her bloodied knuckles. The tattoo ends beneath her arm, the wings spread across either side of her ribcage. Changbin doesn’t care to ask where she got those crumpled bills from when she paid for the design up front and in full, and he doesn’t care to ask. It’s not like he’s doing anything particularly legal himself.

“Pretty,” Seungmin murmurs sleepily.

Changbin glances at him and smiles. “Your eyes are closed; how would you know?”

“Always pretty,” Seungmin says. “I want you to paint me a wall-sized piece.”

“Sorry, I don’t do request commissions.”

Seungmin smiles, eyes still closed. “Then I’ll just fill the walls of the apartment with your sketches, tape them everywhere until you’re so sick of seeing ‘em, you paint me that mural.”

“Oh, it’s a mural now?”

“Guess not,” Seungmin says, a bit quieter. “I want to be able to see it forever.”

“Besides, I don’t come over nearly enough to be annoyed by that,” Changbin says.

“Maybe you should,” Seungmin says. And then, so faintly that Changbin almost doesn’t catch it, “Things are always better when you’re around.”

Changbin frowns. “Minnie?”

But Seungmin doesn’t reply, breathing slow and even. Changbin puts down his pencil and watches Seungmin sleep for a few moments before he reaches out and cards his fingers through Seungmin’s hair until he snuffles softly and the lines on his forehead even out. Changbin's frown only deepens.

 

It should be enough. To make something

beautiful should be enough. It isn't. It should be.

Richard Siken, "Landscape with a Blur of Conquerors"

 

**Author's Note:**

> im chillin [@whiskerprince](https://twitter.com/whiskerprince) 24/7 my good dudes


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